Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

A comparative study was carried out on the amino acid content of soft cheese produced from cow and goat milk. Extract of Calotropis procera and nonconventional coagulants such as Carica papaya extract, lemon juice and steep water from different grains (maize, sorghum, millet) were used. The raw milk was processed into soft cheese and amino acid profile of the cheese sample was carried out using standard methods. The revealed that, Leucine was the highest essential amino acid in cheese coagulated with Calotropis procera and methionine was the least amino acid in cheese coagulated with steep water from millet (9.98g/100g protein, 0.75g/100g protein). Leucine was also the highest essential amino acid in goat milk coagulated with lemon juice and tryptophan was the least amino acid in cheese coagulated with steep water from maize (11.60g/100g protein, 1.26g/100g protein). The highest non essential amino acid for cheese produced from both milk samples is glutamic acid (15.67g/100g protein, 14.00g/100g protein). The use of goat milk for the production of soft cheese appeared to be a very good source of both essential and non essential amino acids and coagulant such as lemon juice appears to be promising for the production of highly nutritious soft cheese.